I wanted to start putting together an insular-style piece using the kind of columnar layout that can be found in the Book of Kells, the Lindisfarne Gospels, and a few other insular manuscripts. I like the look of that layout, and though I still don't know what the words will be, I've thought that it's a really nice design for framing a small amount of text in a larger illumination.
So, school ended and I went to work.
As is my habit, I went through my process of filling in each space, first designing and redesigning the animal-patterns that were to form the bulk of the image with a pencil, and then going over the final pencil designs with a technical pen (my wonderful Signo bit 0.18).
In the columns, and the circles above, you can see dogs and birds, as well as traditional Celtic spiral patters and basic interlace. The people at the bottom, with their flutes and their books, represent the scribes and bards relating the glory, the madness, and the humor of the hunt, with the spirals representing their music and the clearer images of the dogs and birds representing the tales. I don't usually go for themes or particular motifs in my work, but when you're doing traditional Celtic illumination, dogs, birds, and people tend to be most of what you have to work with and the theme kind of emerges on its own.
At the top, you can see more animal patterns (including the big oafish head of my own St. Bernard, Darwin). Also, at the bottom of the image above, you can see in the little circles a different kind of Celtic patterning called "steps," which were common in insular art, though completely new to me. Actually, along the sides of the outer columns, I used a so-called "fret" pattern, which is also traditional, but a novel thing in my art. I was full of experimentation with this thing.
The chest (so-called because I think it looks like a big traveling case) at the bottom of the design was...mixed. I wasn't terribly happy with how the three sections at the top came out, but the derivations from the Lindisfarne Gospels on the left and right came out really well, and the circular area in the middle is something I'm really pretty pleased about, mostly because it's simultaneously very different and also very me.
So the line-work is finished. All in all, I have no idea how many hours it took me. Not more than 70, but not less than 50, I should think. And it's not over yet. Once I feel ready, this will be painted, which will take...god, I don't even want to think about how long. A long time. But if it goes well, it'll be worth it.
Here's a scanned copy of the design, with much higher resolution. If you do a right-click and say "View image," you should get a (very) large view of the line-work, which makes it a bit easier to see the details.
(p.s., Because I have no life and am a dork, I counted: including the 6 humans, this thing contains 169 animals. Pretty remarkable when you consider that the whole thing is 5.5"x10.5")
No comments:
Post a Comment